86 ways to tell if you're addicted to Enfields!
1. You kiss your Enfield goodbye instead of your wife as you are leaving for work.
2. You call home more then twice a day to check on them.
3. You get up at night to use the bathroom and stop to check the Enfield forum on your way back to bed.
4. When faced with an old, beat, bubbad Ishapore MkIII* in a gun shop the question you must wrestle with before you buy it is not 'why?', but 'why not?'.
5. After three hours of pestering the gun shop owner, you cant think of a single reason 'why not' and proceed to buy the Enfield for $20 more than its worth normally in good condition, yet are completely happy with your purchase.
6. You assume everyone you talk to will be interested in the cool inspection stamp you just discovered underneath the Knox form.
7. You are embarrassed to discuss certain credit card purchases made over the internet but signing up for a porn site isn't one of them.
8. You wonder what your friend's new Remington 700 was converted from.
9. You begin looking for original wood, iron sights, and barrel bands for that Remington 700.
10. You wonder why they ever deleted volley sights from rifles. To heck with military tactics, they look SO COOL.
11. While discussing past relationships with your current significant other/wife/etc... you lapse into talking about your Enfields because you've given them all women's names.
12. Even after lapsing into Enfields, your significant other has no idea you're no longer talking about other women you've dated.
13. You're current significant other leaves you after you began pining away for some Enfield you sold/traded long ago, consistently referring to it by its female name.
14. After she leaves you, the only thoughts that cross your mind are: Great! More range time! More .303 money!
15. You never dated in school because you didn't want to limit your 'quality time' with your rifles.
16. Getting lucky means a couple of consistent MOA prints on the range...sex lives are for people who don't have Enfields.
17. You openly admit to stroking and oiling your wood. You even share tips on it with friends.
18. (For the single but dating guys) You don't care one way or another if your girlfriend doesn't ever want to spend the night, but if you wake up without your Enfields near you, it puts you into a gut wrenching panic.
19. You must say goodbye to the guys on the forum before leaving town or going on vacation.
20. You search frantically through Ebay and other internet sites for a copy of The Lee-Enfield Story.
21. You know that cruciform and bayonet go together.
22. You know that charger and Visa are two different things
23. You know a nose-cap is not a knitted proboscis cover.
24. You know 10 rounds rapid has nothing to do with boxing.
25. You know a butt socket is not found in dirty books.
26. You know that a cup discharger is not a new way of removing a brassiere.
27. You know "head space" has nothing to do with hat size.
28. You spend so much time with Enfielders, you add an extra U to common words like valour, favour, armourer, etc (for you Americans!).
29. You know how to wrap a pull-through.
30. Every time someone mentions "The Finest Battle Implement Ever Devised" by name, you have an urge to scold them for using a 'dirty word'.
31. Enfield Logic: Who cares if the Mauser can handle a stronger cartridge? While you're still working you're Mauser action to make up for you're miss, my 2nd round is already there.
32. You gleefully like to remind germanophiles that where the SMLE took 22 years to refine, it went on to serve 60 years in frontline service. The Mauser took 37 years to 'refine' and was being traded off to 2nd line units and cut up for scrap after barely 47 years active service.
33. You know that the SMLE is the only bolt-action arm that has ever been mistaken on the receiving end for a machine gun.
34. The SMLE is only a Smelly until you've shot it, then its a SM(i)LE.
35. You also know that a #4 is NOT a Smelly. That cognomen only applies to the #1 rifle.
36. After a rough week you take a special sort of pleasure in showing up to the range with your Enfield, nestling in between two 'assault rifle' shooters who think that they're just the crap, and proceeding to make their targets look like victims of a scatter gun in comparison to your neatly punched, tight groups.
37. You lovingly rub oil into the stock, by hand, for up to 6 hours a day.
38. You love the smell of old linseed more than a woman's perfume.
39. You comment that "She" shoots very well".
40. You eagerly await the parcel delivery company, and know down to the minute their usual delivery times and routes in your area.
41. You scan more photos of "the ladies" than you do of the ladies.
42. You hunt the internet for pictures of Enfields and accessories more than you do for nudie pictures.
43. A frog is not a reptile, no matter what your science teacher told you.!
44. Piling swivel if you please, not stacking swivel!
45. It is a fuller, not a blood groove. P-Lease!
46. You become furious if James Paris Lee isn't mentioned in the same breath as Browning, Colt, Maxim, Mauser, G@rand, Sieve and Kalashnakov.
47. You scour the auction sites for months looking for a SMLE I* forend. Then you find it and get out bid. Then you cannot sleep for 2 days in abject dejection and inconsolability.
48. You finally realize that not all Ishapores are crud, just 98.25 % of them.
49. A cut-off has no correlation to John Bobbit.
50. You'd rather risk peeing your pants to finish reading the addictive messages rather than get up and go to the bathroom and come back and finish reading them.
51. You laugh so hard reading #s 1-50 you have to bite down on an HXP round to keep from waking the family at 2am. You were just going to the bathroom after all and what can make you laugh there.
52. You've been up 24 hours straight trying to get the baby room finished at night so, you can spend all the daylight hours at the range shooting your Enfield.
53. In spite being up all night and being dead dog tired before you go to bed you have check the Enfield forum so you don't miss anything, then end up spending 2-3 hours on it.
54. You carefully distinguish between your "milspec" L-E's and your "hunting" L-E's even though no-one else sees a difference (It doesn't help when you change your mind once a week).
55. You'd actually pay more for an old, used, cloth sling, than a brand-new leather one with your name carved in it.
56. All of your rifles are quite clearly of war-time vintage, and you spend a lot of money searching out parts to make it look more like a military-issue firearm, importing them from all over the commonwealth, to boot.
57. You're not sure that this new L-E is going to be more accurate, or look and act as well as the ones you have, but you need it anyway.
58. You have more butts, swivels, screws, safety bolts, or what have you, than you have complete L-E's and yet you wouldn't even begin considering trading them off. "But that's a perfect example of a Longbranch Bantam butt stock", (and you're over 6 foot tall).
59. You think you know the difference between beech and birch.
60. You post this list on the wall of your gun room or vault next to you're babies just so you can tell them the many ways you love them.
61. You know Sweets 7.62 is not a candy.
62. You have broken at least one firing pin removal tool in the maintenance of you're collection.
63. You know magazine lips are meant for bending, not kissing.
64. You read all the new posts on the forum, even when you've got absolutely no idea what the people are talking about, or have never owned an Enfield like the one being discussed.
65. Although only owning one or two other Enfields, you consider it you're personal quest to find a SMLE with the cut-off intact. You regard the rare SMLEs with both cut-offs and volley sights intact, as holier than the Lost Ark of the Covenant. (And if that SMLE has Irish Free State markings, you're certain it is GUARDING the Ark of the Covenant!)
66. You find and purchase that SMLE and, although always loading a full magazine, you prefer to shoot it single shot because, hey, that's what the cut-off is there for!
67. Your wife/significant other, is used to seeing you quite affectionately hold and pet you're 'ladies' and doesn't mind in the least.
68. Your wife/significant other, has openly forbade you to rent any movie in which an SMLE might appear because she knows you'll comment/drool over the rifle. (but a skin flick is perfectly all right)
69. (For you 'Highlander' fans) You've ever picked up a L-E and, after deeply inhaling the sweet aroma of its oils, you shut your eyes and launch into a commentary about the rifle and the year it was made like you were there...(Maltby, 1921....1921 was a very good year...)
70. You are annoyed when you go to a gun show and do not see a Enfield.
71. You own more bayonets that fit your Enfields than you own Enfields.
72. You fall asleep at night to the vision of firing one of your Enfields.
73. Determining whether a gun show was a good one is based on the number of Enfields present.
74. You hide one of your Enfield purchases from your significant other/spouse.
75. Owning more pull-throughs than Enfields so that you are not without on your next Enfield purchase.
76. You know the Ishapore screw is not shown in the Kama Sutra
77. You know the correct way to install an Enfield sling.
78. "Aiming off" is not a mystery.
79. You know what the command "ease Springs" means.
80. You don't think the absence of a hole for the piling swivel on a Lithgow is a factory mistake.
81. You think nothing of buying headspace gauges AFTER firing dozens of rounds through your rifles.
82. After 'athletic activities' in the sack with the significant other, you discover some part or another of an Enfield in full, clear detail, pressed into some part of your (or your partner's) anatomy because you forgot to take the rife out of the bed before beginning.
83. #82 happens so often you're significant other not only fails to mind anymore, but doesn't even notice.
84. In the throes of passion you forget to call out her name and instead yell out the name of you're favourite rifle.
85. After not writing on the board for several days, your friends begin to worry about your health and wonder who will get your collection.
86. You find yourself looking up at your Enfield collection for inspiration from your keyboard.
